We recently have put together an interview with jewelry designer Julia Bristow. Her work is amazing...beautiful bead work, fun fruit jewelry, and rockin' guitar straps. We definitely see a bright future ahead of this talented designer! Even though she is rather new to this line of work, she comes off as a seasoned professional.

******************************************************

Snapshot Fashion: What inspires you when you are designing jewelry?Julia Bristow: I am very much inspired by the beads themselves and when I find some beautiful gemstones or flower beads, I find that I immediately think of something in nature that they remind me of and I usually then go on to create a piece of jewelry that looks similar to the nature scene I have in mind.

SF:What is your favorite type of jewelry to make?JB: I have quite a variety and haven't actually discovered my favorite yet. I sometimes like weaving things with seed beads, which seems to be sort of a type of meditation to me. Since I love beads so much, I really enjoy making beaded charm bracelets as that allows me to use a large amount of beads to create an item filled with the combination of beads I like at the moment. Fruit jewelry is always fun. I really enjoy making healing gemstone jewelry I love working with gemstone beads – I love making something that has a purpose and that will hopefully help someone through a difficult time.

SF: I love your fruit jewelry. How did you come up with that idea?JB: I used to collect vintage jewelry and came across some old vintage fruit "Carmen Miranda" jewelry for sale on Ebay. I bought a few of them and once I learned to make jewelry, I had the desire to create a piece that was more realistic looking. I wanted it to have grapes that looked real and juicy. When I first started making these, I thought I was just making them for myself for my own collection, but they became quite popular and they are actually one of the most popular sellers on my site.